Continuing my quest to travel the world.

It has been my quest to cycle around the world for a very long time, although I have ticked off 16 countries to date, I still haven't achieved the ultimate goal of cycling the world. I cannot wait any longer for the conditions to be perfect, age is catching up with me, so it is now or never.

picture drawn by Jim my Step - Father on our trip across Australia

After our trip to Vietnam in 2012.

Tuesday, 10 December 2013

It’s Christmas time again. People either love or hate
Christmas. For some it is a reminder of sad times and missing someone, or
simply the huge expectations we are put under to provide presents for all and
sundry, and heaps of food and drink, and still stay on a budget financially. I
was speaking to Karen our neighbor and she absolutely hates Christmas. All our
friends are childfree, so like us – there is no point to Christmas.
I know I’m not the favorite aunty to my nieces and nephews because I don’t give
presents, but I’m not bowing down to consumerism just to make them happy. While
people are under stress all around me, I am calm and collected and I intend to
stay that way.

Niel getting my new bike home.

All I do for Christmas is go to the movies the one and only
time I do that in the year, have the smell of Christmas lilies in the house,
and I might have a Christmas ham or turkey – why not? But this year – purely by
accident really, I have a new bike.

My touring bike, which I love, is too heavy for long
distance audax events where every minute counts, and my carbon fiber road bike
is too light – it just wouldn’t take the knocks and hard life of endurance
riding on rough roads and hitting unseen obstacles at night and possible
patches of gravel. So I introduce ‘Dax’ my new long distance / touring / bunch
riding bike. I won’t bore you with the details, but it is the New Zealand brand
of ‘Avanti’, and it is partly aluminum and partly carbon fiber and I love it.
It is the perfect hybrid of lightness for speed and handling, and strength for
taking the hard life of audax and touring.

'Dax' my new Audax bike.

Actually virtually the same thing happened last year, when I
finally got my touring bike (that was stolen in Vietnam), replaced just before
Christmas. I hope I’m not setting a precedent.

We rode into Nelson to get our movie tickets, and saw a seal
pup on the cycle track. In all the times we have ridden that track – we have
never seen that before. It was very cute with huge eyes. Then a bit further on
we got stopped and photographed and interviewed about our usage of the track as
the paper were writing a story about the cycle trail. Maybe we will be in the
paper yet again. I think that would be the 7th time we have been in
the paper as a result of cycling!

Anyway we went to the movie theatre to get some tickets to
see the latest Hobbit film. You would think that the movie industry wants to
make money wouldn’t you? Well apparently not. The Hobbit movie hasn’t quite
started yet, so I couldn’t buy the tickets in advance. I suggested that I buy
gift vouchers and I phone in to book when it is showing. No, you cannot use
gift vouchers to book a seat over the phone, even though they are giving away
free passes to see the movie on the radio. Get this: I have to phone on the
Tuesday before the week I want to see it and only after 5 pm and only use a
credit card to book it. As Niel says” Do I need to have my mother holding my
hand too” How totally ridiculous.

Anyway, for those of you who celebrate Christmas, have a
lovely day. For those of you who don’t celebrate Christmas, have a great day
off, and for those of you who come from a country that doesn’t celebrate
Christmas – well thank you for reading my blog and have a nice day. Cheers
everyone.